If you count video gaming amongst your pastimes, then a new study carried out by the University of Sapienza in Rome has good and bad news for you.
You see, the good folk at Sapienza have reached the conclusion that playing video games often (which the study’s authors say is playing at least an hour a day) might lead to reduced sex drive.
“I’d like everybody to understand that while video games are fun, an excessive use of them might actually have consequences on the most intimate aspects of their life”, the study’s lead author Andrea Sansone told psypost.org (via dailymail.co.uk).
So does this mean you should give up enjoying your video games and take up another pastime to have a better sex life? Not necessarily, as the study also reached the conclusion that men who play games regularly might last longer in bed.
This is because avid gamers appear to be less likely to ejaculate prematurely, with the study’s authors writing that “we could suppose a relation between less interest toward sexual activities in men who mostly use video games and positive psychological effects on ejaculatory control”.
The authors of this study even go on to affirm that playing certain games might have more effect on a man’s sex life than others, with the guy who spearheaded the Sapienza effort posing the question of whether a match of League of Legends (a well-known multiplayer online game) would be as stressful as an hour of MiniMetro (a game about building a rail transit network).
So what to make of this study?
Like previous studies which have linked gaming to evils like violence in society and even obesity, this seems like a questionable piece of research to say the least. Actually, the sample size was quite reduced (only 398 men took part in the study) and the results were derived from “anonymous self-reported questionnaires”, plus according to psypost.org the study employed a “cross-sectional design” which did not allow the researchers to make “any inferences about cause and effect”.
It is safe to say then, that if you’re an avid gamer you can keep gaming on as usual, without fear that this will actually have any impact on the most intimate aspects of your life. It is also sad that people keep trying to scapegoat gaming and those who enjoy video games, unfairly blaming what is a mostly innocuous hobby for many of society’s ills.
But nonetheless, the fact that this study came to be in the first place shows that video gaming is increasingly becoming a mainstream pastime, and hopefully more people will pick up a gamepad and discover what is actually a pretty rewarding pastime anyone can enjoy.